A Pizza Outlet teaching staff to flirt with customers
A Pizza Outlet is teaching its staff how to flirt with customers in an attempt to relax them, it has emerged.
The family-friendly restaurant, famous for serving up "bambinoccinos" – a cappuccino without the coffee for kids – has recruited classically trained actor Karl James to teach flirting and the art of chit-chat to staff to help them to butter up the restaurant's customers.
Mr James is running a series of bespoke workshops with the Pizza company employees to help them improve the way they interact with people ahead of the launch of a new concept restaurant in Richmond, the Living Lab, due to open next week.
A source close to the company said: "With social media and texting reducing our face-to-face interaction, The Company has enlisted the help of a conversational expert who is incorporating flirting and unique conversation techniques … into its new staff training scheme to help completely redefine the restaurant experience for customers." Mr James had played a key role in designing the Company' new training and recruitment process, including teaching staff "how to flirt (subtly) with customers so they feel more comfortable and relaxed", he said.
He added the hectic pace of modern life often prevented people from having a quality conversation. But somewhere among the pizza ovens, pushchair ramps and oversized pepper grinders, the art of banter was a "teachable skill" which would help staff "get the most from every interaction, with colleagues and customers," the source said.
Mr James runs The Dialogue Project, a specialist school that helps people master the art of conversation. The company's other business clients include Unilever and the BBC.
Angela Baron, an engagement adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, backed the flirting technique, which she said was becoming more popular in service-led businesses. She said: "The Pizza Company is a fun, family-orientated business and I can see that teaching people to engage with customers and have fun with them would give them a better experience."
However, she warned the company to explain to staff exactly what they meant by flirting or the training could become a recipe for disaster. "If they mean customer flirting in the sense of 'what are you doing later when the kids are in bed', that's not a good idea," sh
Its no wonder to some staff behaving mouchy ie flirting as it is now confirm it is a company policy to flirt !!
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